Hi, my name is Don!

November 17, 2006

Fast forward to the past

The concept of time traveling is not new to most. Anyone who grew up in the 80’s knows about the ‘Back to the Future’ movies. This movie was a great movie and it caught my attention right away. This movie was probably what made me interested into science in the first place. I was fairly young at the time but that didn’t stop me.

I remember sitting outside on the sidewalk one summer night. I lived in a small little neighbourhood on East Avenue North. It was warm and peaceful night and the sky was clear. Gazing up into the heavens, countless stars could be seen. There weren’t many street lamps on this street thought, only a couple on the corner of Barton and East Avenue. It was a perfect night to be star gazing but I knew nothing of the past time.

I was sitting on the sidewalk with my neighbour from across the street. When I first moved into this house, my brothers and I didn’t get along with them. We were the only Asian family that lived on a street that had a lot of Portuguese residents. The first few weeks, they kept teasing us and chanting, “Chinese people never swear! A hole! A hole!” My brothers and I looked at each other and I was like, “Are we Chinese?” I didn’t know much English back then so I had no idea what the word was for my nationality in English but apparently I was Chinese.

After a few of chanting I finally got them to shut up. They assumed that I knew karate so I used that against them. It worked out pretty good because every move I did looked cool to them. They were impressed with my martial arts. Yeah, my Kung Fu was good back then. Eventually, I showed them some moves and we became good friends.

The family from across the street had four boys, Mike, Paul, David and the little guy whose name I’ve forgotten. The one that I got along with well was Paul because he was my age. We didn’t attend the same school though. I went to Sandford Avenue School while he attended St. Brigid Catholic School. Attending different schools didn’t stop us from hanging out afterwards though.

One summer night, Paul and I were outside sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house. We were talking about time traveling. This is a pretty big topic for a couple of grade three kids. We were discussing the concept of time traveling and what we would do if we could travel back through time.

Paul: I would come back to July 29, 1989 at 8:30pm and talk to ourselves.Me: Oh yeah! That would be awesome!Paul: Yeah! And I would bring us some money too so we can buy lots of Bazooka Joe’s!Me: Yeah! We’re going to be rich when we grow up. I’ll be driving those fast cars because I’m going to make a lot of money fixing cars!Paul: Awesome! We have to remember this day. In the future, we are going to come back to July 29, 1989.Me: You think we it was possible to come back?Paul: Yeah! Look what happened in the movie. But when we come back, we’re coming back in a space ship!Me: Coooooool! I get to drive right?Paul: No! It will drive by itself!Me: Oh yeah! That’s totally sweet, man!Paul: Yup! Me and you buddy!

Even though it was 8:30 at night, we weren’t whispering because we were so excited about the concept. Now, my memory is not that good. I am not sure if that’s the exact tat we my friend and I talked about but it was something close to that.

Time traveling isn’t a complex concept to understand but the theory behind it is somewhat mind boggling. There are a few paradoxes that can drive you crazy. If you’ve read up on some of these paradoxes you know that the contradiction is incomprehensible and will make you run in circles. Time traveling is something out of science fiction but it may actually become a reality. Scientists believe that they are able to send a photon back in time, thanks to quantum mechanics. I’m very eager to see if this little experiment of theirs is going to work. Logic says that if it did work and time traveling is possible, my friend and I would have seen our future selves that summer night in 1989.